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Bounty Board

Dougbear the Bugbear avatar
Written by Dougbear the Bugbear
Updated today

The Bounty Board is a new feature from StartPlaying designed to make it incredibly easy for new players to find a Dungeon Master and... Start Playing!

What is a Bounty?

Bounties are Learn to Play Dungeons & Dragons One-Shots that players have requested to run at a specific time.

Only select DMs are eligible for the Bounty Board. If chosen, you will now have access to the Bounty Board tab.

DMs who are not eligible for Bounty Board will not see the Bounty Board tab.

Bounty Board Games

To run a Bounty Board game, you will need to make a Starter Set template.

Starter Set templates restrict certain sections with pre-filled information. This helps us keep the player experiences consistent across games.

The pre-filled sections are as follows:

  • Title - "Learn to Play Dungeons & Dragons"

  • Format - One-Shot

  • Game System - Dungeons & Dragons 5e

  • Levels - Levels 1 - 5

  • Themes - High Fantasy

  • Session Duration - 2 Hours

  • Player Age Range - 18+

  • Experience Required - Beginner

  • Session Cost - $20

  • Equipment - Internet, Computer, and Microphone

  • Safety Tools - Deck of Player Safety

  • Character Creation - "(GM's Name) will provide pre-made character sheets for you to choose from after you sign up or at the start of the game."

Safety Tools

The Deck of Player Safety is required for all Bounty Board games. However, you can also add on other Safety Tools you like to use (Stars & Wishes, XNO Cards, etc.)

All Bounty Board games are required to comply with this standardized format.

How to Claim a Bounty

⚠️ NOTE: GMs will not be able to begin claiming bounties until November 10th. We are giving GMs time to make their templates ahead of the launch to Players.

  1. Go to the Bounty Board

  2. Find a bounty on a day and time that works for you

  3. Click Claim

  4. Fill out the Claim Bounty form within 5 minutes

  5. Click Claim

Standardized Adventures

Just like Starter Set templates will have pre-filled selections, your Adventures will too.

  • Minimum Number of Players - 1

  • Maximum Number of Players - 6

  • Game Styles - Your choice of Combat Heavy, Dungeon Crawl, Roleplay Heavy, Rule of Cool, Rules as Written, or Theater of the Mind.

    • Other Game Style tags not in this list will not be listed as options.

Additional Questions

What Level Should Characters Be?

Pre-generated characters should be anywhere from Level 1-5. These are folks who have never played D&D before. We don’t want to over complicate their game with too many abilities and stat blocks!

What Adventure Should I Run?

You can run any adventure you want, as long as it is beginner friendly. If you need a starting place, we recommend checking out these resources as inspiration for quick, beginner friendly adventures:

Pre-Written Adventures

Resources for Creating Adventures

Biggest Advice: Keep it Simple!

The entire session runs 2 hours, including your intros and closing the game. You'll also be answering questions from beginners (there's a lot to look at on that character sheet!), so keep it simple for you and your players.


Give them a taste of the fundamentals of D&D (exploration, social interaction, and combat), but don’t get too in the weeds.

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